Prior to the pandemic, we used to see candidates use the “family emergency” excuse when they wanted to bail on an interview at the last minute, accidentally missed a meeting, or were opting for an easy way out of the screening and selection process. Now, as our third year of living with the COVID-19 virus is in full swing, COVID-19 is the new family emergency. The recurring trend in excuses is “Sorry, I’ve gotten sick and it might be COVID”, or “I’ve just learned I may have been exposed to COVID“, or “I have to care for a family member with COVID”, or any other COVID-19-related excuse you can imagine.
While we do know that this excuse most certainly is valid in a lot of cases, it can be difficult to decipher which candidates are being truthful and which are not. In the last few weeks alone, we have personally seen it used at least half a dozen times. It is, in effect, the perfect excuse. Nobody questions it because it is plausible and even likely to be true. Also, unlike the “family emergency” excuse, it does not elicit a slew of follow-up questions (e.g. “Oh no, what happened!?”, “Are you okay?”, “Is everyone okay?”).
The COVID-19 excuse is being used not only in the workplace, but in social settings as well. It seems to be the go-to, no-questions-asked excuse du jour, used to remove oneself from anything one does not feel like doing. With the fear and incidence of COVID-19 so prevalent in our everyday lives, the excuse yields the quickest and easiest way out of any situation.
As the future of the pandemic remains uncertain, and much debate surrounds how best to move forward in the waxing and waning COVID-19-era, it will be interesting to see how the COVID-19 excuse will evolve, and how long it will be before it loses its infallibility.
